Thursday, December 28, 2017

Wow, I don't know about you but I feel as though 2017 flashed by very quickly. While I'm certainly looking forward to what 2018 will bring to the tabletop, I figured I'd take a look at the last year of wargaming madness ...

Wargames Played
Sometimes I feel as though I don't nearly play enough miniature games. I think the reality is that it goes in spurts as one might say. Perhaps what I would like is to play more consistently throughout the year ... but alas, work, family, and life in general dictates our gaming availability.

So what did I play this year?

Dead Man's Hand > 1 Game

Bolt Action Modern > 3 Games

Bolt Action WW2 > 2 Games

SAGA > 4 Games

Galleys, Guns & Glory > 2 Games

ACW (This Hallowed Ground) > 6 Games

Napoleonic (Empires at War) > 5 Games

Firestorm Armada > 3 Games

Blood Bowl > 6 Games

Overall that is 32 games. That being said, I'm sure I missed a couple that I played and didn't document in some way as to remember. Not terrible at all. Some select pictures from throughout the year below ...

Loved this picture.

This is one of my all time favorite pictures.

Conventions
I managed to hit up three conventions this past year:

DundraCon - Lots of fun and the first roll out of the Pickett's Charge game.

KublaCon - Was perhaps the most miniatures I've played at an convention. This included playing all three Gettysburg games ... needless to say I was exhausted by the end of the weekend.

CabinCon - Something we tried out. A cabin retreat with board games and wargames (on one of the hottest days of the summer as it turned out).

Three a year is about the right pace for me ... I don't think I could do any more than that to be honest.

But wait ... there's more!

Scenarios

Eight scenarios got documented this year:

Pickett's Charge (ACW)

McPherson's Ridge (ACW)

Little Round Top (ACW)

Casey's Redoubt (ACW)

Roncevaux Pass (Napoleonic)

Shevardino Redoubt (Napoleonic)

Waterloo (Napoleonic)

Aspern-Essling (Napoleonic)

Not too shabby considering every scenario above as a custom fur mat for it :-)

Speaking of fur mats ... 2018 was the year of the fur mat ...

Rules and Articles

I managed to do several updates for Bolt Action Modern (including the move to the 2.0 base Bolt Action rules). I also have improved This Hallowed Ground (ACW) and Empires at War (Napoleonic) significantly in my opinion. I published only one article this year on building better scenarios - but I have another ACW article written and submitted waiting to be published. While far from perfect, these rules are all working well for me and the group and it seems that at least one person out there has found some enjoyment playing these rules ... so I'll call that a win!

Terrain

Besides the fur mats, I've added a shed load of terrain this year. I don't blog about everything, so a lot of little stuff gets through the blogging cracks. Perhaps the largest chunks of terrain have been ACW and Napoleonic related.

Adding all the Waterloo buildings to my collection was significant (all from Hovel's).

For ACW I added essentially everything you see on the tabletops for the Gettysburg games. This includes all that snake rail fencing, buildings, scatter terrain (need more for horse and musket periods), and the impressive Seminary College model from Sally 4th.

Farmhouse and barn.

More snake rail fencing than you can shake a stick at!

An impressive set piece for any battle!

Another residence.

I added some more great sets from Crescent Root Studio ...

Got a bool custom Blood Bowl pitch ...

And a bunch more stuff I can't even think of at the moment.

Other Stuff
And last but not least and list of a bunch of other stuff that happened this year:

Not to shabby this year. I do have to admit that most of the year I felt as though I could be doing more, especially on the blogging front. In retrospect I can't really complain all that much. Now I shift my focus to 2018 and what it will bring.

LASTLY ... and certainly not least of all ... to each and every one of you out there who take time to follow or read my rantings on this blog ... THANK YOU! I wish you all the very best in 2018!

Friday, December 22, 2017

Finally got together for a game with the guys! Decided to pull out the modern Iraq stuff since it has been a while since we played modern Bolt Action. Fear not, my Waterloo preparations remain in full swing other than taking some time today to play a game.NOTE: Picture heavy, tons of pictures below.

I really wanted to start this post off with a Die Hard movie reference ... something like: "Twas the Friday before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring ... except four assholes in standard two-by-two formation advancing ..." --- hahahaha ... hey, if you can't make yourself laugh, why bother! Anyways ...

This was a fictional engagement on the outskirts of a major city - in this case we called it the outskirts of Baghdad. The battle saw two combat teams from the USMC fighting against elements of the Iraqi army and insurgents.

Acting on intelligence that the mosque is HQ for a large insurgent group and harboring a large weapons cache, USMC have been ordered to seize a foothold on the main highway into the city, clear out the blocks surrounding the mosque, and clear the market while protection civilians who are in the area and may be attempting to flee the fighting.

An intelligence drone is on station for D3+1 turns (rolled a 2 - so 3 turns). USMC decided to bring the drone in on turn 2-5.

A Cobra Gunship comes on station at the start of turn 4 (specific colored die was added to the bag).

Iraqi insurgent forces had 7 cells each with 6 figures (mixture of assault rifles, RPGs and LMGs). A T-55 tank and BMP-1 (with ATGM @ -1 pen) could enter at the start of any turn for the Iraqi army. The BMP-1 carried a section leader and 2 x infantry fireteams (6 figures each: 4 x assault rifles, 1 x RPG, 1 x LMG). A technical with HMG and another with a recoilless rifle could also enter at the start of any turn.

All insurgent cells move out from the mosque on turn 1. While the cells did not regenerate for this game, we used golf tees to mark locations of insurgent forces. When discovered the insurgent player could deploy any insurgent cell they wanted at that time. We had some basic spotting rules in place for discovery of the golf tees. The easiest way was for the intelligence drone to use it's "detect" action to automatically reveal any golf tee.

The USMC was able to complete their objectives but took some casualties along the way. Most notably was the ATGM from the BMP knocking out an M1 Abrams ... John Lantz managed it ... Roy did the math and there was somewhere in the vicinity of a 2% chance that it would do it ... John rolled very well.

Another great moment was John rolling for Amateur Hour on 2 x RPGs at one time - he rolled snake-eyes and they both blew up! Anyways, it was a really fun game and enjoyed by all.